Access technologies of various kinds, especially for wireless communication, are becoming increasingly ubiquitous. Examples include GSM/GPRS/EDGE, WCDMA/HSPA, CDMA2000, WLAN, WiMAX, LTE and so on. Wireless terminals offered by vendors match this multitude of access technologies by including ever more access interfaces to allow greater freedom and flexibility in selection of access to use for each communication session.
In 3rd Generation Partnership Project (shortened to “3GPP”) Access Network Discovery and Selection Function (shortened to “ANDSF”) is described. ANDSF, defined as a part of System Architecture Evolution (shortened to “SAE”) within 3GPP provides user equipments (shortened to “UE”) with policies and access network discovery and selection information (shortened to “access information”). UE can query the ANDSF for information about non-3GPP accesses. In response, ANDSF provides the access information which indicates when and where non-3GPP access may be available.
As depicted in FIG. 1, ANDSF 110 and UE 120 communicate with each other over a defined communication interface S14. ANDSF provides the access network discovery and selection information, and UE can use this information to determine which access to scan for and also to determine operator policies with regard to handovers. UE can decide to stay on its current access network, e.g. its home 3GPP access network, or perform a handover to a non-3GPP access network. ANDSF can also provide information about 3GPP accesses, typically to a UE connected to a non-3GPP access.
To efficiently support access network discovery and selection, ANDSF should provide UE with accurate information about availability of other accesses, and the information should be adapted to UE's current location. Unfortunately, there is no simple way to configure the ANDSF with this information. The task of configuring the ANDSF with localized neighbor relations information is likely to be huge and expensive. Information could be configured manually. However, it is tedious and cumbersome to manually configure and maintain relationships between every cell of a 3GPP access network (GSM, WCDMA, E-UTRAN, LTE, etc.) and surrounding non-3GPP cells. In addition, manual processes are inherently error prone.